


The Virulent Transcript

by fadeverb



Category: Sunless Sea
Genre: Cannibalism, Epistolary, F/F, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 14,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The <em>Virulent</em> leaves the docks of London with a new captain at its helm: a woman seeking fame, fortune, and adventure on the Unterzee. The zee will always provide opportunities, and this captain knows how to navigate between the shoals of caution and ambition to find what she seeks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csoru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csoru/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Virulent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464652) by [fadeverb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb). 



> This is a transcript of one possible playthrough of [The Virulent](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5464652/chapters/12632528). If you would rather read this story as a game with choices and additional voyages, please follow that link instead!

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

February 1st, 1888

"A new month is a new beginning," says my employer, when he wishes to encourage us towards greater efforts on his behalf. His account book tallies up our labors upon the zee, yet scarcely a spare Echo makes its way into our hands at month's end. All the same, he has taught me a valuable lesson. With this new month, I shall make a new beginning. A greater beginning than he has imagined, hunched over his books of accounts and logs from our tedious excursions between Fallen London and Venderbight. No more shall I fill my ship with the bandaged rot and dusty breath of the near dead.

"My ship," I write, as if any of the vessels I zailed upon between those ports could truly be called my own. Not the first rusting steamer that I crept aboard in secret, and where I paid for my board in scrubbing those foul decks. Not the tedious ship whose spotless, impersonal decks I last set foot on yesterday, and whose decks I will never tread again, though all aboard called me captain. No, _my_ ship is the sweet old Virulent, and she will bear me across the darkling zee to places I have never seen. She will bring me fame and fortune. Oh, how my employer will regret this month's beginning, when he sees what I have made of myself, unfettered by his bony hands! A new month, a new voyage, a new course of employment. A new book of blank pages, to keep under lock and key in my own cabin, while the crew may look in satisfaction on the quite ordinary official log I have set by the wheel.

A new debt to a certain hard-eyed woman in an elegant townhouse, who says she has no need of a ship anymore, and no heir upon which to bestow it. Very well. I will prove myself as much an heir to that canny old captain as any true daughter of hers could have been, and then what shall they all say?


	2. Chapter 2

_From The Surfacer's Guide to the Wonders of the Neath_

Wolfstack Docks! A charming location to be sure, though you ought to keep a close eye upon your possessions as you tour these quaint and smoke-filled environs. The locally termed "zailors" upon the underworld's "zee" frequent these parts, and with the expenditure of very little coin at one of the dockside taverns, you may find yourself entertained with an implausible tale of adventure out in that glimmering darkness. (Refer to the chapter on places of refreshment, under the section "Authentic Local Drinks", for a list of the most appropriate taverns.) If you venture out to where the coal-burning ships stand silent on the water, you will see all manner of ports advertised for their locations. Trade, tours, and terrifying scientific expeditions set out from this place, and you might join a ship for any such adventure!

Of course, we recommend that you confine yourself to admiring the ships, and taking on a few stories of the zee...

#

_From the logbook of the Virulent_

Restocked supplies and fuel. Took on a new commission to fund the next expedition.


	3. Chapter 3

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

In my experience, when a hansom cab pulls up beside a woman walking in the street, and a pair of strong-armed dockworkers suddenly bundle her inside, the story usually concludes unpleasantly for one or more of the three people so involved, to say nothing of whoever is in the cab. This morning's incident, on the contrary, left me inside the hansom with a tigress in a fashionable hat, who leaned forward to say in the most cultured local accents, "My apologies for the haste, Captain. It's only such a bother to be seen walking about in this area. I have a dire need, and hope you will be able to fill it for me."

After we had established that her need was not culinary, she went on to explain her actual desires. Apparently she is a speculator in teas, from Port Carnelian. That outpost is always longing to follow the fads of London, but news travels faster than useful cargo, and so merchants there are perpetually weeks or months out of date in being able to supply the most popular hat styles, pulp novels, and, as the tigress claims, tea.

I had been unaware of fads in tea, being fond of a brisk cup of coffee in the mornings (and few more through the day) myself. Tea is for having with guests one wishes to soothe or charm. But the tigress assures me that tea has its own fads, and she traveled to London to spend a full week investigating those who set the trends in the tea-drinking world. Now she intends to travel back to Port Carnelian with an enormous stock of the teas everyone will be clamoring to drink as soon as the fad blossoms--but her hired ship refused to let her aboard, on account of her nature.

"You see," she said, "the urgency of my plight. I can offer no more up front than what I did the previous captain, all of my other liquid assets having been invested in leaves, but on arrival you'll be rewarded handsomely. Or beautifully, as you prefer." Her fangs are quite white when she smiles, as I discovered in the darkness of that cab.

I do not entirely trust a tiger's promise, but I have agreed to take her and her cargo to Port Carnelian. The more nervous of my zailors have been reassured by reminders of the sapphires said to practically litter the beaches of that place. No doubt any sandy sapphires have long ago been snatched up, but by the time the zailors have discovered that disappointment, we will be at that destination. I will be sleeping with a stout club beside me in my cabin on this trip, though, that's for certain.


	4. Chapter 4

_From The Surfacer's Guide to the Wonders of the Neath_

Abbey Rock could not be called charming, nor exciting, nor even a particularly good place to spend a restful week after excessive hedonism in more festive ports. It is known mostly for its nuns, who are little inclined to be distracted from their religious duties by conversation with the outside world, though they do appreciate up-to-date newspapers. If you should find yourself on Abbey Rock, it is likely because you are on a ship heading to a more colorful destination, and wished to stretch your legs while supplies were procured. If you should find yourself on Abbey Rock for more than a day, you must either have a religious calling, or a failure to follow the simple instructions listed in our section on how not to be abandoned by irate zee-captains on a journey.

#

_From a letter between an unknown zailor and their lover_

Still no disappearances, despite the tiger. Tigress, the captain says, pointing out the beast's hat. Hats! What does a tiger want with a hat? It also wears spider-silk scarves with pink roses patterned across them, and stands on the deck chatting with officers like it doesn't have mighty fangs and cruel claws and eyes nearly as yellow as a devil's. "At least it won't eat your soul," says Old Crooknose, when I'm rolling a barrel of fuel to the boiler room with him. "Not like devils." At least devils have proper faces and skin, and wear clothes like proper people, and don't look like ravenous beasts.

I post this from Abbey Rock, in case we're all devoured in our beds on the subsequent journey, so that you may know I love you sincerely, and think of you in all times of quiet or peril. The nuns are trustworthy sorts. Not a peculiar hat to be seen among them.

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

...and that's all I have to say on the topic of those damnable nuns, or I'll fill my pages with it, and have no space left to write about other events on the island. I had returned to the ship, and was about to set off, when a figure in nun's robes came rushing down the pier. Had me half in mind to set off faster, until I saw the dark spectacles on that wimple-shaded face. "Captain," said the woman, once she had my attention, "take me with you. I am no longer welcome here."

I expressed that we were sailing south, not north, and if she wanted a ride to London, she ought wait for another ship, or for our return. In truth, I was reluctant to bring the ire of those dour sisters down on me, and taking a false-nun away with me would likely do just that, if they had some punishment in mind.

"I am going south," she said. "It is inevitable. South before east." I confess that I found her unsettling, with her gaze hidden behind the dark glass, and the way she spoke. Confident, and yet...resigned? As if she were discussing what had already happened. "I have some experience of command. A ship like yours could use that."

If she'd had any gossip about the tigress on board, or the way the zailors were still nervous about that presence, she didn't mention that directly. (The tigress has been nothing but an excellent conversationalist and dinner companion so far. Zailors need a show of confidence to get them through such fears.) She mentioned very little directly. A suspicious woman in several ways. I told her to come on board, and we would see what sort of first mate she made, at least until my next stop.


	5. Chapter 5

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

The tigress knows a great deal about fashion. She has been encouraging me at dinners to try a new style of hat, change the buttons on my deck coat, add a cravat before going ashore. "We females must always keep a keen eye on how we present ourselves," she said, between polite lapped mouthfuls of soup from the shallow bowl we've found for her. The other officers are particularly quiet at dinners now. "My mother taught me that when I was still only a cub. We traveled all through the southern isles, her in a dashing scarf, me with my charming little bonnet. If you come to a place like Aestival, you will be more than glad for a good hat."

The doctor opined that Aestival was merely a legend, and then the first mate, that newest of our officers, spoke up. "I have been there before," she said. "The sun pierces everything. It bleaches bones white. But I find it is the wrong sort of sun for other purposes." A lively discussion arose from there. The laughter and chatter from the diners may reassure the zailors, who have not taken to the tigress's presence aboard.

After dinner, I joined the first mate on her watch, and inquired delicately after the matter of Aestival and dark spectacles. She gave me a strange smile, and removed those spectacles, to show me eyes that shone bright, and amber irises. Like the tigress's, but more luminous, and flecked with gold. "I've been touched by the Dawn Machine," she told me. As straightforward as when she had asked for passage on my ship. "I thought you knew. Or you did, and asked after Aestival to pretend otherwise. In either case, nothing has changed, now that you know. We will still be wary of each other."

I cannot say I protested this statement. We spoke further, of her past and plans, though she seems to view the two as a single entity. What has happened was meant to happen, what will happen is bound to occur, or something along those lines. Mysticism has always given me a headache. I do remain wary, and more so for having discovered she has been to the southern shores before, and was exiled. For her involvement with the Dawn Machine, I suppose, and that is a piece of the world I have no desire to interfere with.

Regardless, this exiled officer of mine wishes to return to Port Carnelian, to bring "warmth to sunlight", as she put it. Apparently she has a box of cold light stored away in her quarters, along with her discarded nun's habit, and needs to have it heated. "Not by volcano or any other fuel," she said. "Nor by the surface sun. Ground heat is what it needs. Opposites attracted." 

#

_From the logbook of the Virulent_

Lantern failed at midnight. Repaired within the half hour. First mate exhorted the crew to greater focus; a useful officer to have aboard.

#

_From The Surfacer's Guide to the Wonders of the Neath_

Port Carnelian! If you wish to take a long journey to only one place outside of London, you must sail the Unterzee for this charming tropical destination. It is not, as you might think from other locations we have recommended, an island, but an establishment on the norther shore of a much vaster stretch of land, as yet mysterious and impenetrable. No doubt the Government will soon solve that puzzle! The portside community boasts all the comforts of London itself, from pie shops to tea shops to puppet shows, while being absolutely suffused with the warm tropical airs of the southern climate. 

Rather than being led to dangerous swamps by rumors of sapphire rivers deep in the jungle, take a guided tour through the botanical gardens of Mrs. Prufrock, then visit the attached museum with its stuffed specimens of many jungle denizens. Mrs. Prufrock is of the striped persuasion, as they say in this port, but a most genteel woman with mittened paws and a keen eye for anatomy. She can explain to you the strange wonders of the blue prophets, and even show you one! Fear not, for these are "prophets" only in the metaphorical sense, and the tigers of Port Carnelian are as civilized as most foreigners who make their way to your city above...

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Set the tigress ashore along with her tea. She's clearly an individual of some reputation in Port Carnelian, for the dockmaster sent for cargo-haulers the moment he laid eyes on her, and signed us in without any fuss. Once she had seen all her tea and luggage safely packed away, she suggested that I stop by for dinner this evening, and then spend a few days enjoying the wet, warm air of the jungles here.

"I don't know how humans stand it in London," she said. "All the damp, and none of the warmth! Or further north, where it's colder still, or drier. You must let me show you around while your zailors take shore leave. It will bring some health to everyone's cheeks. Zailors do tend towards the gaunt and nervous, I've noticed."

I kept the tigress in pleasant conversation while a few zailors took one of the small boats down the shore to a beach for a picnic, the exile hidden among them. With an old brown coat of mine thrown over her back and her face turned away from the docks, no one could spot her as anything but another zailor on leave. She has sworn that her search will only take a few days, and that she will be back on deck before we set sail at week's end. Well. "Sworn" isn't quite the right word, as she simply stated that this was so. The exile claims her destination is set, whatever route she may take as she gets there. She has also invited me to join her in her jungle search.

"We're having liver and mushrooms tonight," said the tigress. "The taste of home! Surely you'll stop by to dine with me. And then a while longer?" I agreed to join her for dinner tonight, and expressed my polite regrets that I could not stay longer. The exile's quest intrigues me.


	6. Chapter 6

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Excused myself at last from dinner at the tigress's surprisingly large estate. Port Carnelian holds a wealth of sapphires, as everyone well knows, but I had not realized what a fortune lies waiting for those who cater to the people managing the sapphire trade. Apparently they all long for the comforts of home, whether that comes in the form of tea trends or the magazines stuffed with updates to their favorite serials. A zee-captain with a very small, fast ship could make a tidy living simply running newspapers between home and this port as rapidly as possible. A zee-captain other than myself, that is; I have no desire to turn my work into another endless cycle between the same two places, no matter how lucrative. Besides, a small, fast ship can be swallowed whole by an angler crab encountered without sufficient warning.

I write this as if I am the soul of caution. Perhaps I am more the soul of unwise adventure, for I have followed the exile into the fungal wilderness that surrounds Port Carnelian. After leaving that dinner I mentioned above, I set out to the beach where my crew had deposited the woman, and found the pre-arranged signal: a strip of red cloth hooked over a spiny outgrowth, as if torn from the clothes of some heedless passerby. Red told me to continue due south, and so I did, until I came upon the exile herself. She stood there in the uncanny glow of the jungle, limned by the radiance of white mushrooms at her feet. I suggested that it would have been more comfortable to sit down and wait for my arrival, as there was an odd tremor to her legs, and I did wonder if she had been standing the entire time, while I took my leisure at dinner.

"I am no longer welcome here," she said. "The inhabitants at the port are not the only ones who feel repentance does not suffice." She turned away from me. "You will follow me through the mirrors, or you will not. I will find myself in the east regardless."

A cautious woman would have left for harbors, ships, and estates with high walls right then. I followed her, and watched where she set her feet as we proceeded more deeply into the jungle. My inquiries regarding mirrors got little in the way of useful response. She referred to Parabola, which is, as I understand of it, not a proper _place_ at all, so much as a convenient reference for the land of dreams. Insofar as it is a land. Which does, in fact, produce strange types of linen, though I have never found anyone among the weavers of Spite who will admit to weaving it into cloth, or discuss how it is procured.

At times I am not certain if the exile is mad, or if she knows what lies beyond mortal minds so clearly that she merely _seems_ mad, in comparison to our understanding of matters. She says Aestival is real, and who would believe such a story of searing light, or that such a hole could exist in the ceiling of our world? But the tigress claimed to have visited the place as well, and the tigress seems as grounded a creature as I have ever met in the Neath, despite her passion for hats. That sun-bleached madness was truth, which only seemed mad because of my lack of experience. Perhaps these allusions the exile makes to mirrors, Parabola, a jungle unlike this one of towering fungus, the things found beyond the mirrors, are another true expression of sanity I simply can't comprehend.

Among the things I cannot easily comprehend are this jungle. I have been to a funging station, once when I was much younger, on a trip where that destination was the primary novelty of the entire dark and dreary voyage. The white caps towered overhead like the steam clouds of the city, and the stalks rose straight, smooth, and proud in every direction. The smaller fungi on the ground had their own hazards, but could be safely avoided; we stepped carefully, picked the small shoreward mushrooms that the ship's doctor indicated, and came back with plenty of supplies, completely unharmed. But here the stalks bend and bulge, and fins of soft fungus grow in spirals along the vast stalks, marked out in other colors. 

We spent several minutes this evening, surrounded by the surreal twilight of the fungal glow, finding a way to pass around a vast and singular growth with a violet surface that stung at a mere touch. At last we had to crawl through a tunnel lined with gills. The sort that grow on mushrooms, not on fish, though they heaved back and forth in a way that was--life-like? Of course fungus is alive, as any plant might be. All the same, it seemed more wakeful inside that tunnel than one wishes to see when moving through an overgrown mushroom.

Regardless. We have set up camp for the rest of the night. The both of us are weary: I from exercise directly after an enormous dinner, and the exile for reasons of her own. She says that we will reach the place she seeks at twilight tomorrow, and she says it the way I might speak not of changing shifts or putting more fuel in the engine, but as I speak about time progressing and the zee remaining. Something fixed and inevitable. We are not far from that enormous growth, and have laid out simple bed rolls under canvas. I ought to give up on my writing, and sleep; she fell asleep long ago. Tinted glasses folded beside her face, and eyes closed, so that she looks like any woman might.

Perhaps I should have brought along a few zailors, to trade off watches. But this part of the jungle seems safe enough. We have made camp on high ground, with a clear view of our surroundings, which I expect will keep us safe.


	7. Chapter 7

_From the third chapter of Mycroft's Guide to Carnelian Fungus_

...though its cousin, the _Lentinus carneroseus_ , also known as the "Rosy Death", is another matter entirely. This mushroom, when found in its juvenile form, is delicious in an oyster soup and has been served in the finest dining rooms throughout Port Carnelian. However, it has also been known to grow to the size of an opera house, at which point precautions are in order when dealing with it.

First, do not climb to the top, as this has been known to attract blue prophets, for reasons naturalists have not explained with any theory plausible enough to be included within this text.

Second, do not eat any portion of the mushroom when it is larger than a shack, as the adult specimens begin producing a hallucinogenic spore as part of its reproductive cycle. This leads to red-tinted images of murder, hence the name, and a surprisingly calm demeanor in the imbiber. Despite the claims of a certain professor not worthy of citation, these are neither prophetic visions, nor ones revealing the details of existing crimes, and they _certainly_ do not pass on a "Jack-of-Smiles infection" or anything of that sort.

Third, do not make camp within a few yards of the bulk if it is larger than a customs office. On rare occasions the subsurface portions of the mushroom have been known to rise up and consume unwary travelers. While this process takes several hours, anyone so consumed will also be thoroughly calmed by the aforementioned hallucinogenic spores, so it cannot rightfully be called a horrific fate. All the same, the wary traveler should keep an accordingly wary distance, and also keep this in mind when considering a test of the second property mentioned above.


	8. Chapter 8

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Unsettled. Writing matters out not only for a matter of personal record and recollection, as usual, but to sort them.

I should begin at the beginning of the day. We left our clear ground and continued due south as before. The place we had slept was dappled with white, from spores or some other fungal side-effect: it changed the landscape, as if we had been transported in our sleep, though... It was the same place. I have been making note of landmarks, for the return, and it was the same place, only slightly changed. A little whiter. A little more overgrown.

I will be very cross if I return to my ship and find fifty years passed overnight as I slept, like in one of those stories told to children.

A long day of hiking between mushrooms. We moved slowly, carefully. Stopped often for reasons that weren't clear to me. The exile is--I want to say "clear-eyed", as if I could see her eyes! She keeps the spectacles in place, despite what I know. Perhaps they give her comfort. I am not certain anything can give her comfort or take it away. We spoke, and I don't always know what _of_. The east? But we are going south. The Dawn Machine? But we are in a world of glow, not any sort of sunlight, not the light of _any_ kind of sun. The mushrooms here are the exact temperature of the hot, warm air around us. She spoke of what I might do when I seek my burning name.

What is my burning name? Why would I seek it? This would be so much easier if I could dismiss her as mad. Or if I could be sure she's _not_.

We found her mirror.

That's the problem. It's not a problem, I think. It's what she wanted. She it was a necessary part of the journey. "For when all the lamps go out," she said, and I asked her if we would simply replace lamplight with glowing fungus, and I have been out among violet and white mushrooms for too long. A full day is far too long, I swear, and I will never walk into these jungles again, after I am done with this. But I will see this throught.

We found a mirror leaning against a mushroom. It sounds ridiculous, put like that. A mirror as tall and broad as I am, hat included, bright and silver as it would be hung inside a lady's dressing chamber, simply resting against a simple white mushroom stalk that could have come from an orderly funging station. The air around was hot and damp as if we were surrounded by baths, and the exile walked up to the mirror--unclouded! That was odd, I realize now. The glass should have been clouded, in all that jungle steaminess, and it was not.

She walked up to the mirror, and put a hand to its surface. She spoke. So quietly I thought she was whispering to the mirror, until she looked back to me, and I realized she was whispering to me. And so I drew near. What else could I do? Drew near, and looked at the mirror, as she explained that the mirrorcatch box she carried was this one's...not twin. Descendant? Worshipper? It made sense when she said it, I think, but I can't recall the words exactly now, and I have always been so good at recalling exact words.

"It won't address me," she said. That I do remember exactly. "I am an exile of this place still. This is why I needed you to come. I am the only choice I have. Do you believe you still have a choice?"

I said quite firmly that I did, though I am not certain she believed me. Certainly the mirror did--and listen. There I go. Saying that the mirror _believed_ me.

She handed me the box she had brought, and walked away. Turned her back quite deliberately. And the mirror--

Perhaps it is only mushrooms. The mushrooms emit spores, the spores have effects. I imagine things. I am writing these things down, which I imagined, and tomorrow I will look at all this again, further from the hallucinations, and be quite amused. Right now I am not amused. My imagination, or hallucination, or whatever it was, is such:

The mirror showed me two choices. In one, I opened the box the exile gave me, and displayed its insides to the mirror. The surfaces reflected back and forth, the jungle's mirror and the ones in the box, catching _something_ between them, and then the _something_ in the box writhed and broke free and came swirling around, like mist, to consume me. In the other, I took the exile to the mirror, and pushed her through. She stepped not through broken glass, but through the mirror itself, as if it was an open door. And on the other side, she turned around to look back at me, smiling, with eyes untouched by the Dawn Machine. Eyes unburnt by the sun. Brown and black set in white, ordinary and human, nothing like the gold in her eyes now. In that vision, that _hallucination_ of the mirror giving me options, she stepped back out of the mirror again, remade to what she once was.

I don't know what she once was. I don't know what the mirror would make her. Is that what she wanted? Does she say that she has no choice, but believe, somewhere deep inside, that this isn't true? Has she brought me here to save her from what she has done? Or is the mirror trying to trick me into destroying her, whom it has already exiled?

This is nonsense. This is all nonsense. It is a mirror, and it cannot say anything to me, and I am going half-mad in this place, with too much mushroom and not enough clear air. Not enough normal light. But it is nearly twilight, and the exile stands only a few yards away. Waiting for me to make a choice.

I will show the mirror the box, as I believe the exile wishes, come what may.


	9. Chapter 9

_Transcribed from the walls of an asylum inmate_

Look! She opened the box! I can see it coming out of the mirror. It doesn't want into the box, and the box will make it bigger and nastier and STRONGER and FASTER and it doesn't want into the box, does it? It doesn't want into the box!

Why in my head? I go to the place with the mirrors and I look through them and she is in my head, the two of them, both women in my head, the one with the box and the one nearby. She opened the box in front of the mirror. She shouldn't have done that. It's coming out of the mirror, and it wants to eat her. It is strong and it is fast and she is tall and she is quick and it spirals around her.

I don't like the spirals. Why are they in my head? The mirrors in the dreams show me what she's doing. She shouldn't have opened the box. She needs to close it, but she shouldn't have opened it, and it's trying to eat her.

Look! She knows it wants to eat her. She knows what it'll do to her. She knows what the mirror said, and I couldn't warn them. I couldn't because the MIRROR gets what it WANTS. I know what she's going to do next. Every night. I know what she's going to do. She's going to drop the box, down onto the ground.


	10. Chapter 10

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

I have not set pen to paper again until now. I write _now_ as if I will recall this exact moment four decades from now, poring over my own private memoirs, and have as sharp a sense of what happened over the last two days as I do at this moment. Perhaps I will. Perhaps my mind will be going, and it is better if I am exact, for the sake of my future self.

When I showed the mirrorcatch box to the jungle's mirror, something came out of the mirror. Out, or _through_ , for I am quite certain now that the mirror goes to another place, whether it is Parabola, some place attached to the fringes of that land, or another land entirely. That mirror is a door that ought not exist. It set a monster on me for the crime of showing it a different sort of mirror.

Monster, I say. What else should I call it? A serpent of mist, or a strangling fog, or a set of reflections reflecting themselves back and forth, mirror to mirror with nothing between, until the mass built up into a force. It howled with a voice made of light and heat, and I did not so much fight it off as tear myself free, as if I had been wrapped in burning canvas and had to escape its clutch. Escape, but see it torn and extinguished. I am certain that if I had tried to flee, it would have pursued me, and I do not wish to contemplate what could have happened after that.

I won free. I tore apart the mist and reflections, vanquished heat and light, slew the serpent, if you will, though it was an imaginary sort of serpent. (And no less real or dangerous for that.) I forced its wisps of fog and its hot breath back into the wet ground. I stomped its head into splashes of mud. And when I had finished, the mirror was a flat gray, all reflection gone, and as solid as the hull of the Virulent itself.

I closed the box, and gave it to the exile as a prize.

"You have done what you always intended to do," she said, as if I had never had any doubts. (Were my doubts imaginary? Could I have chosen differently? I feel that I might've done differently, but she was so sure I could have done nothing otherwise.) "Now I must go where I am expected."

"To the east," I said.

"In the end," she said. "There are stops along the way, and lamps to see extinguished."

We returned together to where I had met her in the jungle, but I could not convince her to return to the ship. Not as officer, or passenger, or any other type of traveler. What she will do at the fringes of a port that will not have her, I do not know, but _she_ seems to know, and that will have to be enough for me.

The crew is unhappy. So be it. They would be unhappier by far if I told them what had happened in the jungle, and they will return to their ordinary superstitious and amiable selves once we have returned to our home for a time.


	11. Chapter 11

_From the logbook of the Virulent_

Restocked supplies and fuel. Took on a new commission to fund the next expedition.


	12. Chapter 12

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Took tea with the old captain at her townhouse this afternoon, and found myself volunteered for a journey of sorts. "You'll like it," she said, which is reason enough to be suspicious. She seldom speaks of _liking_ , when she could speak of hazard or profit, or simply be as cryptic as is her wont. At times I wonder if white hair comes matched with one of two symptoms: senility or obliquity. Having avoided one, she has taken up the other.

Regardless, I allowed myself to be volunteered, as for once she marked out a clear point on my charts, and even gave advice on an indirect route to take there. "As you don't want to sail through the Sea of Lilies," she said, "unless you have business with the prison, which you do not. You'll find captains who claim the port is a dull but acceptable stop along the way, and you should not believe them. Not while zailing in _that_ ship." One might have reason to suspect that even with a fresh paint job and changed captain, the prison guards would recognize the Virulent for some past action of the old captain. I will choose the better part of valor, and follow the route she suggests.

The route, in any case, is not the point of the commission: I have been volunteered to the Admirality as a captain of reliable and incurious nature, who will deliver a particular individual to Aeschaven, or Godfall--I am not sure which is the island, and which the port, from how they have been marked out--and then return with the same individual, having asked no questions along the way, and showing not the slightest interest in what might be occurring at our destination.

The old captain knows better than that. I wonder what sorts of questions she expects me to ask, and how many of the answers she hopes I will bring back to her?


	13. Chapter 13

_From the journal of an Admirality clerk_

Another long, dull day at the office, but for a moment of sunshine in the morning. (Sunshine! I think I will never see it again. Whatever possessed my father to bring me to the Neath? Whatever possessed me to stay? I'll save up the coin and return to the surface one of these days, won't I just? If only clerks were paid more, or offered more interesting opportunities on the side.) A fetching woman was waiting for some matter or another with the Admiral, right outside the door of my office, and after several long moments decided to step inside and have a few words with me.

A strange woman, and probably not quite respectable: she smiles more than the well-bred do in the presence of strangers, and that butterfly tattoo on her cheek would never be accepted in high society. But she has such a way of speaking! A Bohemian? She seemed like the sort of woman who would declaim something licentious at a secret poetry reading, the sort I ought not attend if I want to keep my position. She stood by my desk and talked about forms, work, the comings and goings of the office, nothing dangerous at all, but I can imagine her being dangerous. Delightfully dangerous. 

And then the moment was over all too soon, and off she was for some meeting with the Admiral and one of the endless stream of zee captains that come to hand him their equally endless reports. Do they ever think of the clerks who have to inspect those hand-written logs, transcribe them, sort them, file them, update the cross-reference books? No, not once. I don't think that captain even looked at me as she left, though the delightful woman with the tattoo winked at me as she passed. That I'm sure of.

All tedious, the rest of the day. And worse yet, my wallet has gone missing. The fault of some street urchin, I'm sure. The constables ought to do something about those grubby menaces.

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

The Admirality has given me a spy. A charming spy, to be sure, and one who claims she is nothing of the sort, only a woman with a message to deliver, but if she weren't a spy she wouldn't be delivering mysterious messages to distant groups of monks. What do monks have to do with the interests of the Admirality? "Nothing," she told me merrily. "They said I would have a quiet journey without any questions ahead, but I like this better already. You'll be disappointed if you expect spying from me, though. I haven't even packed a notebook. Besides, the Admirality doesn't believe in freelancers. Not the way zailors believe in their gods."

She threw her luggage into her cabin, and is now questioning the crew about the engines. If I thought I had done anything to incline the Admiral's opinions against me, I might worry at such discussion.

The Admiral's clerks demanded my route, and have provided me with exactly enough fuel and supplies, beyond what we had on board already, for the full trip. All payment beyond that waits for my successful return. The margin on this lies uncomfortably close to the division between success and disaster. I am not a merchant, nor aware of any particular high-priced market among monks for the sorts of goods I can acquire easily before setting out. For the better success of this voyage, I will quietly stock up on extra fuel, as all will be lost if we end up adrift in the zee.


	14. Chapter 14

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

The sea is silent and pale tonight. A fog bank surrounds us, and phosphorescent creatures churn in our wake, vanishing under the gray behind us as quickly as our forward lights vanish into the gray ahead. None of my charts warn me of dangerous shoals in this area. We are as well hidden from any danger as we could reasonably wish, and I would like to find this comforting, but instead the lights before and behind make me feel as if we are suspended in one place. Water rushes past us, but what if it is only the water moving, and not us? A ship caught on an invisible pike, fixed in place, while all the zee turns into a silent current pulling past. How would we know?

We will all feel better when we can see the roof overhead again. The false-stars are a kind of comfort. I have never been much of one for seeing signs in the constellations, but the lights themselves show a kind of boundary to things which I enjoy. All things are finite. Life, the zee, the Neath itself. Finite, measurable, knowable. These scientific thoughts reassure me when the zee itself grows too dark and mysterious. It is only water, and the way light reflects across it, and natural creatures--however strange some are!--residing in the zee. Half the dangers of the zee come from other people, in any case, and what is more scientific or natural than the human tendency toward selfishness and cruelty? There is no need to look to the devils to understand pirates. They exist even in the sunlit lands above.

Someone is knocking at my door.

Later. The knock came from the spy. She brought a bottle of wine, a newer vintage, but not a bad one. "Because you're full of questions," she said, as if I had invited her in, and I suppose I didn't tell her to stay out. She found a place to sit, and opened the bottle on my table, right beside the journal I had just closed. "Have you ever been to Whither? Nothing but questions, there. It'll drive a body mad. Just try to find out what you want to know, however simple it is! In any case, you do have questions, don't you?"

I allowed that I had many questions, but also the ability to contemplate them in quiet, given the twin restraints of wisdom and propriety. To which she said, "Propriety isn't everything. I've known people who are very _proper_ , and I'd rather have the alternative. You've met the ones who want to follow all the rules, even the rules no one wrote down! There's nothing more tedious than that kind of--what would you call it? Sincerity? Or integrity. Imagine being the same person all your life, beginning to end."

I raised various alternatives that had no appeal. "See," she said, "you talk about it as if it's binary. Order and chaos, masters and minions, honesty and lies. Well, there are solid things, and things that aren't so solid. Engines and dreams, if you will. You'll find that if you look long enough, people are a bit of each. I suppose it's not so bad if they want to cling to one side. It's like parents, don't you think? Do you favor your father or your mother?"

We disposed of the bottle of wine in conversation such as this. Too much to record in detail. She asked after various ports I had visited, as if she cared only a little for the answers, and I think she cared rather more than she let on. If she is not a spy, she is the next thing to one. I find that this doesn't bother me.


	15. Chapter 15

_From the logbook of the Virulent_

Passing through the Corsair's Forest. All lamps off but the running lights. Lighthouse sweeps are more danger than comfort here.

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Beware the Sea of Lilies, indeed! What kind of advice was that, when that old captain could have told me more of pirates? Scarcely any prey on the travel lanes near the tomb-colonies, but this spiky wash is filled with them. Littered with them. Rusty old tubs too wary to even approach us, sturdier little ships we kept our distance from, and one corvette full of rapid disaster. 

We were outgunned. I am sure of it. Outgunned, against a ship well-plated and filled with zailors I have no desire to meet, not accompanied by only the dozen aboard my own ship. We ran like spooked cats without any rooftops to leap to, ran for days of pursuit with that corvette's lantern always setting up a cold blue light across our stern, and poured fuel into the engine until that d---ed chunk of metal exploded. A zailor told me that we ought to give thanks to Salt that the last explosion spooked the pirates away, and so gave us enough distance to escape in silence and darkness.

Thanks! After the fire it set in the hold! These pages are smudged with the soot of my hands. We are as safe as a lack of immediate attack can make us, still floating, no longer on fire. But still in the water. The spy is down there in the engine room, discovering what can be made of what we have left. I am at my charts, discovering where we can reach from here.

#

_From a suppressed pamphlet distributed at the Wolfstack Docks_

All hail STORM the god of the deeps! Give STORM a name in whispers and water. Give STORM an offering of what swims deep below the passing of the waves. Give STORM an offering of what has bubbled away from its earthen roots. Give STORM an offering of the ship's master, the salt of blood and salt of tears, or give STORM an offering from the ship's master, the salt of blood on salt of blood on salt of blood that pours from those who gave the ship's master command of their lives.

As captains to zailors, whip in hand. As lovers to lovers, with bloody hands. As the wind and ash and snow and sparks and voices in the gale, as the lights crawl up the lines in the dead of the night, so we pray, so we offer, so we give, so we ask. All hail STORM the god of howling. All hail.

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

~~All is not well.~~ Very little is well. Our engine growls, pushing us onward. We crawl across this zee, lights off to draw as little power as we can from the work of the machines. My charts and the false-stars have given me a position, and a destination. If, _if_ the old captain's marks were true, we will reach Godfall before the fuel runs out.

We will be out of food well before that point.

The spy told me this in private. I have kept word of it from the crew, so far; with no cook to watch over the supplies and gainsay me, they accept my statement that there were some losses, thus the reduction in rations. The mathematics of the situation comes to me in nightmares. I have checked and checked again, the numbers count down, the results remain. In my dreams, we lose two of the crew to the fire, preserve a crate of food, and my sorrow is all feigned, my joy real, because it would save the rest of us.

Simple math. Very simple math.

I discussed this with the spy. (I will have to tell my few officers about this very soon.) She gave me no contradiction, only the roughest sympathy. She has a way of smiling that has nothing to do with hopes or happiness. "There's no way around it," she said. "The only way out is through." Her small stock of personal supplies--nothing but a few bottles of wine--has already joined the communal store. What can I ask of her but advice? What advice can she give me?

The captain is the god of her crew and her ship, when the Unterzee lies in all directions. This is the only way a ship can function. I am their god, and I must make a decision, very soon.

One must suffer for the good of all. It is the only way. We will wait until all supplies are gone, and then draw lots. This is only fair.


	16. Chapter 16

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

The oldest of the zailors drew the short straw. Sweetwater Bess, a steady hand, who hired on with me because she had worked beneath me before. "I wanted more of adventure," she said, the straw in her hand. All the crew stood silent around us, faces hidden by darkness, except where the green glow of the running lights caught out a chin here, a nose there, the hollows of eyes. "So many trips to Venderbight! Out here, there's nothing of dust on the tongue. I feel as if I've been a sponge, soaking up moisture again."

She walked to the stern, and closed her eyes. Maybe she was imagining the way the lamp would have looked across the water, if we hadn't turned it off to conserve fuel.

I cut her throat. I am the captain, and god to these people on the zee. The blood poured across my hands, across the stern, across the darkened lamp, across the water where neither she nor I could see, only hear the churn of creatures attracted by its scent. She went silent and calm as if she were only climbing into bed. And none of the crew would meet my gaze, when I turned back towards their green-limned faces. Only the spy.

She gave her last bottle of wine to the zailor selected as cook, and let me be while I washed my hands in a bucket of salt water drawn up from the zee. The crew all moved downstairs as they were able when the cook's call went out, and what did they see there? Nothing I saw. Maybe nothing but the enormous pot, churning away with what had been put inside. Maybe bloody bones, and a folded pile of personal effects that we will return as we always do. I stood in the wheelhouse, staring at my charts, until they brought me a bowl.

Of course I was hungry. We were all hungry. Ravenous. But not ravening. Everything was done exactly as it had to be. We are not monsters, however many surround us out here in the darkness. They are still thrashing alongside our ship, growling in our wake, in hope that we will be driven to another act of despair.

The spy was waiting when I returned to my cabin to change my clothes.

"You should have stripped to shirt alone," she said. "Wouldn't that be more practical, and less sentimental?"

I took off my bloodied coat. "It's not sentiment," I told her. "It's ceremony." 

I keep a lamp in my cabin, which draws nothing from the engine, fueled by an oil unsuitable for the ship. A small luxury for my own writing when the ship runs dark. She had a golden glow beneath that light, and the image on her cheek caught some of that sense, as if she had been lit up in turn from within. "Because of the death?" she asked.

"Because I am captain. Only the captain can do--that." Call it sentiment, perhaps, after all. I can write it, but I could not name it clearly, standing before her, though I think she would not have judged. Or had judged me accurately already, when the knife was out.

"The crew could," she said. "If you were did."

"No," I told her. "The crew could fall on each other like beasts, or murder each other by the numbers. It's different."

We spoke about other things. Less bloody things. I ought to sleep. I ought to have slept hours ago, and soon it will be time to wake, in any case. I don't wish to sleep. I don't wish to write about this anymore. No one will speak of it, except for her. Now that it is all over, we will all pretend this never happened, won't we?

#

_From a letter between the gunner of the Virulent and her lover_

Yes, we had a spot of bother on the trip, but nothing so terrible as you always imagine! We encountered some pirates, and poor old Sweetwater Bess took a shard to the chest that laid her low, but we gave as good as we got, sailed quickly away, and had no trouble after. A few fires put out, but you'll see on my return that I haven't even a new burn to show for it. The captain kept matters well in hand. The loss of Sweetwater Bess is sad, it's true, but every zailor knows these hazards, and she went fast. So you shouldn't worry for me: as a gunner, I'm stored away in one of the best-braced, best-hulled parts of the ship, and so long as this sprightly tub keeps afloat, you can expect me back home, full of new stories.

I wish you wouldn't worry so. Yes, I'm a fretful sleeper when I'm at home in your arms, but that has nothing to do with your bed or my trips. It's only that the steady furniture on land, without the rocking of a ship beneath it, makes me restless at night.


	17. Chapter 17

_From a report to the Admirality, by the Captain of the Virulent_

The requested delivery having been made, the crew was given leave to take some time among the monks, given hardships imposed by damage suffered along the way. The leader of the monks reports that everything is "copacetic" and "sanguine", though I am not certain he was sober at the time that he delivered this commentary. Find enclosed the list of other ships viewed at port, as well as an account of the pirate ship we encountered on the way.

While I realize it is not the business of the Admirality to mind the affairs of every merchant ship on these waters, I would recommend deploying some resources towards the capture or destruction of the ship mentioned in that account, given the serious damage it seems capable of and its unusual persistence...

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

We sat together in the wheelhouse before she left the ship, on the pretext of consulting charts and wrapping up our business there. Half the crew had already gone ashore that vast fallen stone of the ceiling, to make merry with the monks. The rest I will send in stages, leaving the ship lightly crewed, and mostly by officers. Some of the crew, I am sure, will not return. We cannot quite look at each other, unless we have the most formulaic words to exchange. Some will return, having made merry with the monks until they have convinced themselves everything is forgotten. The zee keeps its secrets, doesn't it? That's what they say in that chapel, ~~and I should have prayed~~ but nothing comes of listening to superstition at length. It leads to a different sort of madness.

Some of the crew will accompany me back home, and find excuses to board other ships. One with luckier captains, or simply captains who do not see blood splashing into the darkness on looking at them. But the spy leaves here, and so we could actually sit together, and speak. As candidly as ever, I suppose.

"You think I mean to pick their pockets," she told me, "but what does a monk keep in his pockets? Nothing! Nothing, or flasks of beer, with these ones. They would be more surprised to reach in and find something there." She smiled, and now I am sure that some quite specific monks will do exactly that in the near future. "Don't think you're abandoning me. I land on my feet, like a cat. Exactly like my father. Though no one drops counts out of windows. Maybe they should. Imagine what it would do for politics."

One can only imagine. We spoke at some length, longer than charts and business could justify, though none of the crew will mention it. (Among the many things they will not mention.) There was a great deal of talking around topics, in all of that, as if we could only approach them sidelong. Tacking to sail against the wind, as ships used to on more brightly lit seas. Her mother and the darkness and blood on the water. Regardless. We spoke, and we came to an end of speaking, and she left.

Two monks have already sent word that they wish to take up a less monkish lifestyle. It seems that even beer and brawls can become tedious to a man, after enough indulgence in both, and one of them claims he has uneasy dreams of their stony home.

He will fit into the crew well, or what is left of it now. There are sounds in the night every time a zailor is sleeping, and that will not change simply because we have loaded more supplies and adjusted our numbers.

The sounds in the night are almost always us. It's for the best.


	18. Chapter 18

_From the logbook of the Virulent_

Restocked supplies and fuel. Took on a new commission to fund the next expedition.


	19. Chapter 19

_From the logbook of the Virulent_

Departed with one passenger, two new zailors, and a hold full of cargo.

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

What a man of the cloth has to do with this cargo, I don't know. Or more the exact opposite: why should a clergyman be escorting a selection of quite particular souls all the way back to Mt. Palmerston? Given the population that clings to the slopes of that volcano, I can't see that they need much preaching at, and he ought to be saving souls, not shipping them. All the same, shipping them we are, with labeled jars nestled in layers of straw within quite sturdy boxes. The man keeps reminding me that these souls are, as he puts it, "Not fungible," and if anything should happen to them, replacing them with _other_ souls of equal number will not suffice.

He deposited half the fee up front, so I don't mean to argue details. His souls will be delivered, and what's made of them after that is none of my affair.

Equally curious was the incident on the docks, just as we were about to cast off. A devil came pelting up to the side of the ship, arms waving, until I came over to the rail to speak with him. One is accustomed to seeing devils saunter, or lounge, or perhaps ride in pursuit of some unlucky creature: _running_ is quite out of my experience with them. This one was devil enough to not show any signs of being out of breath, despite the running, but I've seldom seen one of those yellow-eyed menaces look so flustered.

"You're going to Palmerston," he said, rather than asked. This, after our passenger had been surreptitious in such a paranoid, tiresome manner. "Never mind what for, we don't care. Take this letter to the address listed there, hand-delivered by you personally, and you'll be well compensated."

I noted the vagueness of this promised compensation, and kept my opinions on dealing with devils to myself.

"Yes, yes," he said, offering me the sort of smile that has likely charmed the souls out of many another woman, "but how would we ever acquire souls if all our promises were empty? And it's such an easy task, not at all out of your way."

The engine was ready to pull us away from the dock, and I had no time for further discussion. I told that devil that I'd deliver his d----d letter, but I expected it to be worth my while.


	20. Chapter 20

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Ash in the wine, and ash in the soup. Ash in my lungs and ash spotting my best black coat. I am heartily sick of Mount Palmerston before even arriving. We spent half a day detouring to the south after a lookout spotted a lifeberg, and all of tonight's dinner was spent in argument with my few officers as to whether or not that _was_ a lifeberg, or merely a whitish rock and a zailor with an over-active imagination. We are all inclined towards caution, given the stories we've heard of encounters between those vast icy beasts and ships even larger than the Virulent, but this has set us nearly a day behind schedule.

The clergyman spent all of dinner, to which he was invited as courtesy due his white collar, staring into his wine and mumbling into his soup. Perhaps he was mumbling about ash, or souls. He is a nervous little man and poor company. All the same, I poured him more wine after my officers left, and questioned him about devils. A waste of time and wine both: he evaded my questions, stammered out his few answers, and resorted to inept quotations of scripture when thoroughly cornered in conversation. "In the absence of names, yea, your sleep shall sweet." He said that, in a discussion of devils! So I asked him directly about the named bottles of souls in our hold.

Had to call a zailor to carry him to his bed, after he twisted an ankle in his haste to leave the room.

#

_From an intercepted letter between a spy and an unknown recipient_

The quaint little egg you gave me as a going-away present will of course be installed in the jolly holiday home I spoke about with you, but I worry about the nest. Some people hereabouts seem far too interested in the habits of cuckoos and starlings, which I maintain are none of their business. Perhaps this vacation is best kept short, under the circumstances. Or you could send along my cousin, who has always been so interested in traveling abroad. See that she brings a stout walking-stick, and is ready for many sermons, and minding those who don't pay attention during the services.

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Set the clergyman on shore with his cargo, and good riddance to him. There was no one waiting for him at the docks, which seems odd for a man of the cloth with such a wealth of luggage, but perhaps it was only that we arrived a day late. He was in a great hurry to be off, with a hired wagon for his crates, and we were in no hurry to ask him to stay. I gave the crew leave, and set off to deliver the devil's letter.

The ash buries everything, here. Or, more strangely, it only coats what it falls on, and never seems to build up high enough to drown what's below. The brimstone wind that sweeps down from the volcano's broken peak must be responsible for that: it brings the ash, and it clears the ash away, just like the waves on a sandy shore. The remnants of the settlement that was remain, without any of the settlers. Gaping doorways in houses. Empty windows in a chapel without a single charred pew left standing before the altar. A road winding uphill, back and forth around places no one lives, until I came at last to the crater itself. 

In the crater's wall, a brass gate, which was the address listed on the envelope. Simple enough. But beside the gate stood a cottage built of black and jagged stone, yet all overgrown in honeysuckle. A deviless came out of the cottage to greet me, and for an instant I took her for a mortal woman. Her tea-dress could have graced the shoulders of any number of women of my age back in London, and her parasol shadowed her eyes. Then I saw the yellow in them, and the sharpness of her teeth when she smiled. Her eyes are quite intense: yellow as with all devils, but orange and peach as well, shading from the fiery to the soft. (It must be an illusion. Even flames can look soft and inviting.) "I am the guardian of this place," she told me. "You cannot pass."

I revealed to her the letter I had been given, and its destination. "A delivery for me," she said. "How considerate of you to bring it here! Would you care for a cup of tea, while I read it over? I long always for news of London."

It was only courteous to accept. She poured me a cup of tea, and we spoke of London for some time, once I had become quite certain the tea wouldn't kill me. Ten minutes of discussion on fog, nearly half an hour on hospitals and those too sick or poor to enter them... You wouldn't think these topics would brighten an afternoon, and yet the way she brought them up, the questions she asked me about my experiences with such things, left a glow inside my chest, as if I had sat down in my own room back in London with the fire blazing and the newspaper in hand after closing the window firmly against the mists outside. Is that a trick of devils, or only the way she speaks?

The letter lay on the table by the teapot, as if she had forgotten it entirely, though I am certain she had not.

"A captain like you must travel all manner of places," she said, and laid a hand over mine. Her skin was warm as stone beneath the sun. "Have you ever been to Irem? I've never been myself, but I need a small question answered. They're supposed to know the most fascinating things. If you meant to travel that way, you could get the answer for me. I would be so grateful."

I had no intention of doing more than refueling, restocking supplies, and turning right back for London, when I put the ship into harbor at Mount Palmerston this morning. I told her that I had always meant to see Irem for myself, and might as well take the opportunity, now that it lay only a few days in the distance, and with the low cost of fuel at the dockside provisioners below.


	21. Chapter 21

_From the logbook of the Virulent_   
_(Damaged portions have been redacted and marked accordingly)_

...Irem, at heading east-northeast for... seven times, with some damage resulting to... lost to the depths...

#

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

We will arrive in the pillared city, roses twining high around the columns and their petals falling into red drifts across the warm white marble of the streets. The statue of the seven-bodied serpent always stands on its pedestal at the center of the city, and after we dock I will walk up to its base and study it for some time. I will not remember afterwards why I chose to read that inscription, or what it said.* The inscription will not matter to me. An individual with pale eyes and bare feet will offer me a garland, and when I refuse, he will tell me that nothing in Irem is true except for what I already took from this place. "When?" "In the time you came before." "I have never been to Irem." "You have been to Irem six times, and this is your seventh and first."

(* The inscription has said before: "Seven thorned wreaths around seven scaled necks, and which neck is yours, captain?" It will not say that when I read it.)

I will not be able to decide if he lies or not.

The scent of coffee has always hung around the pillars at the House of the Amber Sky. I will return there some day. The first time my feet crossed its threshold, I was not yet myself and could not dream of the person I would become. When I am twelve years old I will enter that place carrying a bag of coffee beans for the captain of the ship I travel on, and when I am thirteen years old I will leave that place and never remember that I have been there, or that I walked away without any captain to board a ship where none of the zailors had met me before and all spoke as if they knew me. I will return to London at thirteen and take safer passage on safer ships and never return to Irem until I am a zee-captain myself. It is only the scent of rose petals crushed beneath my feet that will remind me of the previous visit, which was not my first. This is my seventh and first visit to Irem.

I passed by the House of the Amber Sky without entering. I found steps climbing upward, smooth and slick as ice, warm as the deviless's skin, and at the top of the stairs I will find the answer she sent me to discover. At the center of the stairs I will sit and write in my journal. At the place where the stairs divide, I will fling my journal away, off the endless staircases that twine about two pillars like the rose vines twine around the necks of the serpents that are not here, and before I throw it to the piles of rose petals down below, I will decide that my answer lies to the right.


	22. Chapter 22

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

Half a day out from Irem, the sea around is quiet. We won't see the ashfall of Palmerston for another two days, if the weather and currents hold, and I have nothing to do but manage the ordinary functions of the ship, unless an emergency arises. Perhaps I ought to be bored. I am not. I am glad to be away from that place.

For what a maddening place Irem is! Had to retrieve my journal from a pile of rose petals, and there was something I realized there, lingering on the tip of my tongue, that I can't seem to articulate. About...bare feet? Childhood? Nonsense, I suppose. It's a place that could drive anyone mad, as my own ramblings show on the previous page. All that about visiting Irem before, when I know full well that I worked as a cabin girl on the Zee-Bat's Roost from the age of ten to fourteen, which ship never traveled anywhere more exciting than Mutton Island. And not often there!

The marketplace at Irem was most peculiar. Crushed petals everywhere, and the most normal luxuries being traded for the most peculiar things. One of my zailors attempted to purchase several crates of parabola-linen, as a sort of investment to sell back in London, and traded away...I still don't know what, but we've blocked the door of her cabin, and I have told the others to bring her food and drink only in pairs, with an officer at watch as they do so. I may yet recommend ear-plugs, as well. She has been saying the most unsettling things. Something about stairs, and serpents, and walking, and on in this vein. In any case, I simply located the contact the deviless had asked me to find, and traded the information she sent for a quite peculiar revelation.

I won't write it down. That feels...unsafe.

#

_From a report to the Admirality, by the Captain of the Flowering Bough_

See enclosed the list of ships seen entering and leaving the harbor during our time here. Of particular note is the Virulent, which is said to have arrived from London not long ago, and then sailed off to the east before returning. Rumors among zailors claim that one of their crew went mad at Irem. I attempted to confirm this, or discover more of its source, but the Virulent's captain is nowhere to be found. Wandering about to commune with nature, one of her officers said, if you could believe that, and not expected back for at least a day.

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_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

"I knew another zee-captain, who would visit me here at times, but he drowned. Mortals do drown, so." She said that while looking directly into my eyes, the two of us seated at that ordinary kitchen table in a domestic little cottage, though I suppose most people don't think of basalt for the foundations of their domesticity. "If you gave me your soul, I could keep it safe. He never said yes. I would have kept it right here." The deviless laid her talons over her heart.

Do devils even have hearts? They have sharp teeth and sharp talons, yellow eyes and endless lies, and perhaps they have neither the kind of heart that pumps blood nor the kind that fills with longing. For the zee, for home, for specific people... But she has spoken so sweetly of London that she must know some kind of longing. She longs for the mists of London, and the souls of mortals. It stands to reason that she must be able to long for people, too. Or does she only want the souls inside them? If her long-drowned captain had given her his soul, would she have forgotten his name and not speak of him so wistfully?

I demurred, with good reason, and she didn't press the matter. Instead, she took the revelation I had brought her, and dissected it. Laid out that piece of information in strands of logic woven together with mystery. I did not follow the process exactly, but she frowned at what she had written out in that infernal script I can't read myself. A soft frown, and then biting her lip with those sharp little teeth.

"I must stay here," she said. "Will you investigate this matter for me? It would only take a few hours, at the most. A trip down the mountainside. Looking inside an old chapel for a particular object. If you find it, bring it back here. If not..." She leaned forward to pour me another cup of tea. "Perhaps there's no trouble at all. People do come and go, hereabouts."

I agreed in an instant, and set off in the direction she had noted after that cup of tea. It was an old chapel I had passed before on my travel. Ash-covered, empty. No space for so much as a zee-bat to hide. After an hour of searching, I found nothing but decided to search the area about the chapel. I did not want to return empty-handed.


	23. Chapter 23

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

I kicked ash about in the space outside the chapel for another hour. And would have called it all more than enough time wasted, and gone back, but for having smashed my boot against a stone I didn't expect. The lamp I had brought from the cottage let me see its nature: a gravestone, toppled over and buried entirely by ash. This gave me a particular idea, given what the deviless had said, as she plucked apart the revelation I'd brought her. And so, feeling half a fool for not simply returning to her cottage and company, I set off to where I had seen another sort of graveyard on my first trip up the mountain. Tombstones for those departed to the tomb colonies, but there was a connection, there. She might have sent me to the wrong tombstone-ringed location.

A good thing that I knew the path well enough by then to close up my lantern on the way. The house I had passed before, with its low stone wall and tombstones, and thought to be some sort of abandoned parish house, glinted from light shining through a broken window. Broken, but covered with dark cloth. I approached quietly, and saw a wagon drawn up behind the house.

If I were a woman who took to caution over curiosity at every turn, I would not be a zee-captain. I moved near to the house, and listened. Within, I heard the clank of metal against stone and earth. Scraping, and shuffling, and what I realized soon enough was digging being done. Two voices inside, one lower and one higher, spoke to each other periodically. The lower I recognized as that of the clergyman I'd carried, and the higher no one I could place. Some compatriot of his from the houses down by the docks. Through their commentary, I gathered that they were planting something--the carefully labeled souls, no doubt--in a cache within the church, for the purpose of someone else discovering them later and taking them for a legitimate abandoned treasure of the previous resident.

To what purpose? That, I never learned. My foot slipped in the ash outside, and the occupants of the house exited to investigate. Some minutes later, I no longer had the opportunity to ask pressing question of the clergyman or his companion, though I no longer believed him a clergyman in truth.

An unfortunate ending to a peculiar event. I bundled all the relevant items that might confuse a passing traveler by their presence in the parish house into the wagon, and returned to the cottage. There, the deviless assured me that she would see to the disposal and management of the whole affair. And while she expressed a general delight in the bottled souls, I could see full well that there was one in particular of special interest to her.

"Have I found what you wanted?" I asked her.

"In parts," she said. "We call it the Curate's Egg." And while she seemed quite amused by this, she refused to explain further. Refused, in that gentle way she has, where she asked me questions about other matters, and discovered a bottle of Greyfields for me, so that I could match cups with her celebratory amanita sherry. There were cups of both, and a near-confusion late in the night as to which cup was which, that had me spitting and her laughing. She laughs like a brass bell, heard far across the zee in a dark place.

When I woke the next morning, she lay beside me, hands clasped around one of the bottles. "It feels like the tide," she told me. "Or a heartbeat. Either way, you can taste the salt. Here." The deviless went hunting through a locked box, her back to me so that I could see none of its contents, and finally took out a brass chain hung with a most peculiar pendant. The gem hanging there was the size and color of one of her eyes, glowing like a banked coal. She fastened that about my neck, and I expected the gem to burn me, but it did not. It merely sits there, warm.

"So that you'll remember me," she said. "If you ever drown--no, before you drown, come back. I could keep so much more safe for you."


	24. Chapter 24

_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

The lights of home are too far still to be individual dots, but form in aggregate a soft glow to the west. I can see them from the window of my cabin, and on deck the zailors will be dawdling at the railings to watch that same glow. Distant fires, that we long for when we are at a distance, and find only brief comfort in when we are among them in their day-to-day reality.

The gift from the deviless is a warm spot against my collarbone, warm as her touch, and no cooler than the moment she gave it to me. I've worn it beneath my shirt since we left Mount Palmerston, and now it is time to put it away. A devil knows nothing of love, and this trinket may be worth enough to pay for barrels of fuel that will keep me warm long after she has forgotten me.


	25. Chapter 25

_From The Surfacer's Guide to the Wonders of the Neath_

The Brass Embassy is filled with devils, should you feel obliged to track them down for a sight of them in the flesh. Their yellow eyes and white teeth promise many things, but you ought not ever take their promises for granted. The wise traveler will admire from a safe distance, and never step through the busy doorways of that enormous building, nor speak at length to the people who do so themselves. This holds true for devils and humans alike; you must always have a little suspicion of those who deal with devils, if you wish to return safely home at the end of your trip.

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_From the journal of the Captain of the Virulent_

That officious, smirking devil with the letter had me follow him all the way back to the embassy itself, and then chattered away over drinks for more than an hour before he let me go. Most of it was nonsense, but there were more serious questions buried in there. I do wonder what he wanted regarding the color of the sky above Mount Palmerston, or if it was some sort of code? In any case, he seemed pleased enough with the results of his letter, and paid well for my trouble. Of this sort of beginning are spies made. I think I will make any future visits to that volcano without special instructions from the Brass Embassy in my pocket.

I said nothing of the gift she gave me. Whatever her intentions, it's mine by right. Tomorrow, I will stop by the market in Spite, and gain directions to a jeweler who can deal with unusual trinkets such of these. Perhaps it's worth nothing more than a handful of amber, and I might as well keep it as a memento. But the hull of the Virulent is still hastily patched from that incident near Irem, and I would be pleased to turn enough profit that we could set into drydock for thorough repairs before taking on a new commission.


	26. Chapter 26

_From the weekly edition of the Adventuring Ladies' Gazette_

If you are able to find a suitable letter of introduction, you might even gain admission to one of the famed revels of Captain Z---, held in her mansion high on a hilltop overlooking Ladybones Road. A peculiar place to locate a house of such taste, filled with treasures of lands across the zee, you might think; but you will think otherwise if you visit her renowned gardens, full of specimens taken from several different islands, and ask the captain for her stories of how she personally visited each location.

You will have to not only procure the letter of admission, but check the newspaper reports of ships arriving and leaving carefully, for the captain still spends much of her time out on the dark waters, traveling on a frigate called the Gem of the Zee. However, should you catch her at home on a quiet evening, you may even hear the fascinating story of how she began as a humble cabin girl on a lowly steamer, and made her fortune at zee.


End file.
